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Cross-strait routes not ‘domestic’: Lai

Any new routes for direct air and sea transportation between Taiwan and China finalized during next week’s cross-strait negotiations in Taipei would not be defined as “domestic routes,” Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday.

Lai, however, refused to expound on what both sides would call the new routes.

“They are never domestic routes,” Lai said when pressed by reporters, adding “You will find out then [next week].”

She made the remarks at a press conference at the Executive Yuan following the weekly Cabinet meeting. She was unable to present her briefing on the talks to lawmakers after the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee was adjourned because of a scuffle.

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) and Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) will hold a second round of cross-strait talks on Monday and Tuesday.

New flight and maritime shipping routes are expected to be created to eliminate the need for travel via a third location as is current practice.

China’s definition of the cross-strait routes as “domestic” created difficulty in negotiations with the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government on cross-strait direct links. The Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) provides for another definition of cross-strait routes apart from “domestic” and “international” routes as stipulated in the Civil Aviation Law (民用航空法) and other regulations.

“There is no way that the cross-strait routes will be called domestic routes. At least we won’t define them in this way,” Lai said each time she was asked the question.

Asked whether the government would register the new air routes with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as “domestic routes” or “international routes,” Lai said only: “[Taiwan] is not a member of the ICAO.”

She dismissed worries raised by the DPP and pro-independence groups that Chen’s visit and the planned agreements would sacrifice the country’s sovereign interests, saying such concerns were “unnecessary” and “incorrect.”

Of the four issues on the next week’s agenda, pacts on direct air and sea links would require legislative confirmation, while pacts on cross-strait postal exchanges and a food safety mechanism would be sent to the legislature for reference, Lai said.
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